Managing stress

Everybody experiences both good and bad stress. It can come from mental activity, emotional activity, or physical activity. The way you interpret stress is unique and personal.

For example, what may be relaxing to one person may be stressful to another. Good stress can be healthy and useful. It helps you get to an appointment on time or meet a deadline. But when stress becomes overwhelming, it becomes distress, or bad stress.

Bad stress can lead to chronic stress, which can leave you feeling nervous, on-edge, and tense. It also puts you at greater risk for numerous health problems, including heart disease, sleep and digestive problems, depression, obesity, memory impairment, and various skin conditions, such as eczema. Learning what causes stress and different ways to cope with it helps you be more balanced and healthy throughout life.

What is stress? Stress is the way your body responds to experiences and events. It helps you rise to a challenge in addition to preparing to meet tough situations with focus, strength, stamina, and heightened alertness. The events that provoke stress are called stressors. Some stressors are caused by negative events, such as a family argument, physical danger, test anxiety, or concern over finances.

But events that you look forward to, such as celebrations, or going to a movie with a friend, are also stressors. Stressors can be single events or a result of multiple events that pile up. The human body responds to stressors by activating the nervous system and specific hormones. The hypothalamus signals the adrenal glands to produce more of the hormones adrenaline and cortisol and release them into the bloodstream.

These hormones speed up heart rate, breathing rate, blood pressure, and metabolism. Blood vessels open wider to let more blood flow to large muscle groups, putting muscles on alert. Pupils dilate to improve vision. The liver releases some of its stored glucose to increase the body’s energy. And sweat is produced to cool the body.

All of these physical changes prepare a person to react quickly and effectively to handle the pressure of the moment. This natural reaction is known as the stress response. Working properly, the body’s stress response enhances a person’s ability to perform well under pressure. But the stress response can also cause problems when it overreacts or fails to turn off and reset itself properly.

Manage your stress by: Evaluating your physical environment (look at the people in your life and review your calendar. Change your reaction by laughing, don’t cry (compromise, or just let it go). Shift your focus to what really matters in life.

Change the situation or change your reaction

• Avoid the stressor

• Accept the stressor

• Alter the stressor

• Adapt to the stressor

Learning what causes stress and different ways you can cope with it is a healthy lifestyle behavior that will reduce pressure and anxiety and influence optimal aging.

For more information, contact Risley at 918-7754838 or janis.risley@okstate.edu.